Remember in 2003 when former mayor Richard M. Daley bulldozed Meigs Field in the middle of the night? It was an act of hubris that cost the city $33,000 in federal fines and a million dollars in misspent airport funds. At the time, the Chicago Tribune wrote, “The issue is Daley’s increasingly authoritarian style that brooks no disagreements, legal challenges, negotiations, compromise or any of that messy give-and-take...

Last month the tech world was all atwitter over the announcement that billionaire socialite Bruce Wayne… er… Elon Musk would scratch Chicago’s itch for a better way between downtown and O’Hare airport than the CTA’s Blue Line or IDOT’s Kennedy Expressway. Back then, you could color us skeptical. We’ve seen this promise time and time again. The closest Chicago ever came was a decade ago when...

It’s not unusual for there to be some pretty rancorous behavior when a new real estate development is presented to the public. Chicago NIMBY groups are practiced partisans. But it’s been many years since we’ve seen a scene like the one at City Hall today. The spark for this fire was the Obama Presidential Center. Inside 121 North LaSalle’s hallowed chambers the Chicago Plan Commission unanimously approved...

Forget all those nice diagrams submitted to the City of Chicago last September showing the details of the proposed River District development on the Chicago River. According to a vinyl banner hanging on a bridge, things have just gotten a lot more interesting at the Tribune Media development. A photograph of the banner in question has been making the rounds of the internet for the last few days. Word is that there is at least one...

Ever since the City of Chicago released the framework for redeveloping the North Branch Industrial Corridor into a new bustling neighborhood of tech firms, trendy restaurants, and glittering high rises, people who actually live in and near the area have worried that an opportunity is being missed. An opportunity to create new parks for the people who will actually live there. The city’s redevelopment plan was shown at 18...

It’s been said that you should always trust your gut. Well, we didn’t. And that’s why we’re bringing you this story on Thursday instead of last Friday. Last Friday we wrote a story laying out the dots for readers to connect. It was a speculation piece about whether China’s now-fourth-richest man would start shopping around Chicago’s Vista Tower development. But we shelved the piece because...

The City of Chicago has announced the route it wants the CTA’s Red Line to take when work begins on its southern extension. The project has been the dream of commuters, and the campaign promise of many a politician for decades. While it’s possible to take a subway to the northern, eastern, and western extremities of Chicago, the far south side has been relegated to bus service. At a news conference, Mayor Rahm Emanuel...

You may have seen it on New Year’s Eve, while standing out on the snow-packed sidewalk, sipping the last 312 from the emergency stash on the back porch, gazing up at the illegal neighborhood fireworks display and thinking that for one moment all is right with the world. It’s the cranes in the sky over the city of Chicago. Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who last year outed himself as a fan of construction cranes, noted in his Twitter...

The city of Chicago reached a milestone today. With the erection of the tower crane at Belgravia Group’s Renelle on the River, that makes 60 tower cranes in the Chicago sky. Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a noted fan of tower cranes, visited the site of the bKL-designed building person to mark the occasion. While Census Bureau numbers show Chicago’s population dwindling, downtown’s residential, hotel, and office development...

After several years of watching Chicago’s near northwestish side enjoy the benefits of its celebrated, elevated, urban park, the mid-northish side is now getting in on some of the 606 love. Except this time, it’s called the 312 RiverRun. And it promises to be way more awesome than the already world-renowned High Line clone a few dozen blocks away. While the 606 was formed from a recycled elevated freight rail line, the...